Matrox Graphics, a quite influential graphics company in the past, today announced its new Parhelia HR256 professional graphics card for high-resolution imagery and visualization based on the Parhelia graphics chip. The solution supports four DVI outputs to drive up to four displays at once.

The brand-new Parhelia HR256 is equipped with 256MB of DDR SDRAM memory for both graphics processors. Since the product is primarily aimed at professional markets, the graphics cards are intended for PCI 33 or 66MHz buses. Additional information about the products were not announced today. Surprisingly, there will be versions of Matrox Parhelia HR256 with genlock and frame-lock functions.

Matrox claims that its Parhelia HR256 is the only graphics card that features a quad single-link DVI interface, enabling both a quad DVI and dual LFH-60 direct connection, with no adaptors, ensuring pristine image quality and providing support for high resolutions, such as 3840x2400, and optimal screen refresh rates. For an extended workspace across additional monitors, or for specialized work environments, this distinctive graphics card can be run alongside other Matrox graphics cards in the same system.

The software bundled with the Matrox Parhelia HR256 includes the custom Matrox PrecisionCAD driver for AutoCAD and the AEC|VIZ and Meka|VIZ for Parhelia visualization and communication tools from TORNADO Technologies.

The Parhelia HR256 will be available for US $2495 directly from Matrox in the fourth quarter this year. This is the first time in Matrox Graphics’ history when the company has not secured any contracts with OEMs to provide its graphics cards as parts of professional systems by the time of the formal announcement.